


Complimentary

by blcwriter



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Embedded Images, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, fic import
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 18:15:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter





	Complimentary

SO, AGAIN, there was a picture in the Daily Captain and Doctor over at Chez Jones that just got me thinking. And Thinking. And THINKING. And that always leads to the pr0ns, don't you know.  It's a well-documented scientfic phenomenon.

I thought that Chris looked not really so much pleased as abashed in this photo. And lo, pr0ns were born. Without further ado...

\--

Complimentary

Chris can’t take a compliment. This is something Karl has started to come to see is universally true. If someone says something nice about Chris’ acting—his voice—his vocabulary—his book choices, even—the man will look down and away, flushing slightly as he closes his eyes, crinkles at his eyes and his mouth since he can’t bear to acknowledge that something nice has been said about him. That smile on his face—the white teeth, the grin—it’s all false, totally nervous, a manifestation of God only knows what, because Karl’s met Chris’ parents and two nicer people it’d be harder to find. And yet—there it is.  
Tell Chris he’s a smart cookie—did a fantastic job—really nailed that scene—and he turns pink, smiles, and looks away every time. He can barely make eye contact signing autographs, and watching him with all of those fans after _Farrugut North_ during those meet and greets was painful, even for Karl, even as Chris was so _kind_ and _sweet_ and _polite_ and you could tell every nice thing the fans were saying just made his skin crawl.

He experiments, and maybe it’s cruel. He tells Chris he looks nice in any one given suit and the kid looks away, fidgets with his tie or his cuffs. Says he did well in an interview, and the man always self-deprecates, demurs on some answer he claims he flubbed. It’s that way all the way through filming, though press, though no doubt Pine’s just about the most giving actor Karl’s had the pleasure of working with. No one’s more willing to run through lines just one more time—even when they’re not his—than Christopher Pine. It’s like the kid only believes in work, no such thing as play, for all that he’ll joke around a bit on the set when others are kidding around or Zach is starting a prank war. But if left on his own, Pine will be reading his script or a book off in a corner—keeps to himself, as if he’s worried that he’d be bothering people if he put himself out there. It bothers Karl more than a bit.

\---

They’re all at a bar. Semi-private, one that doesn’t let the press in and lets celebrities hang out with each out without all the glitz. Simon’s re-telling some story of some great moment of Chris’ during principal filming, and Chris looks abashed, staring down into his beer and refusing to comment. No one else seems to notice.

“Stop that,” Karl leans over to murmur, and Chris flushes red, not meeting Karl’s eyes even as it’s clear he’s heard what Karl’s said and understood what he meant. “It’s totally true.”

Simon’s going on with his story, meanwhile, so Zach leans over to clasp Chris on the shoulder, requiring a verbal reaction. Chris says something humble, something that puts himself down—something he really means, and what the hell is his problem, the kid is a genius even if he is like any young actor who had to work his way up through the ranks of bad movies.

“Chris,” Karl says again, trying to recapture his co-star’s attention. Chris won’t look his way, instead fiddling his phone up to the table (where it is actually lit with a call) and saying “Sorry, got to take this,” as he made his excuses and slid from the table. He looked relieved, to be interrupted.

Most guys would love to be the toast of the table. Not Pine.

\---

After five minutes pass, Karl makes his excuses and goes out in search. Chris is self deprecating, yes—rude, never.

“Are you sure?” Chris is asking. His face is graven with worry, his smiling eye crinkles all gone. “You used both thermometers?” He barely looks up as Karl draws even with him in the hall.

He sighs as he listens. “Well, call the doctor’s again, but put him in a cold bath for now. I’m leaving the bar. I’ll come to the house and take him to the hospital as soon as I get there.” There’s some pause before he says “Yeah, no worries, I love you too, see you soon,” and hung up.

“What’s going on?”

Chris’ mouth is tight. “My nephew’s got a high fever and cough, my sister sprained her knee badly a week ago and can’t drive, her husband and my parents are all off on separate shoots. Blah blah blah. She can’t reach the doctor, so I’m going to go over there now and pick him up and take him in to be seen.”

“We’ve got a press call at nine,” Karl reminds him.

Chris shrugs, nonchalant. “It’s an ensemble cast, if I’m not there, the show will go on. I’ll call J.J. from the car, you guys all got fab reviews, no one will miss me. Tell everyone I’m sorry to bail?” His expression is pleading, almost little-boy-like, and Karl’s of too many minds all at once. He knows Chris has only had half a beer, despite all the rest of the booze the others were drinking—but by the same token, Chris has seemed far more exhausted than anyone else by all the publicity. He should offer to go—keep Chris company, since he, at least, has the kids—but at the same time, he’s flabbergasted by how blasé Chris is about his potential absence tomorrow, and he’s feeling more than a little bit stunned.

 _“It’s an ensemble cast.”_ He’s Captain Kirk, for fuck’s sake. Who the hell does Chris think he is?

\---

Of course, Chris makes it in by ten-thirty, looking tired as fuck under the smile and large coffee. He’s quiet and nurses his drink for the first couple of questions (though J.J.’d already made the excuse of Chris’ unspecified family emergency) before someone pitches a question at him, about Kirk’s character growth and then he’s off, making some analogy between growth and responsibility and something Ralph Waldo Emerson said. It’s so eggheaded it goes right over the vapid blonde’s head as she nods and goes a bit gapemouthed.

You can tell Chris has been up all night, he forgets to turn off the smarts when he answers questions sometimes. Zach, bless him, is sitting most closely, and slathers a bagel with cream cheese, shoving it under Chris’ hand with a look over his glasses that says “bitch, eat the bagel, I love you.” In a gay, bromantical fashion, of course.

“Eat that, professor. It’s too early for transcendentalism in L.A.” he says to the mike. There’s a relieved titter of laughter as the reporters realize they’re not expected to understand whatever Chris said.

Karl makes a joke of it too. “Chris only gets smarter when he’s been up most of the night. Only Zach can really keep up.”

Chris immediately looks down into his coffee and flushes, his smile nervous and the back of his neck turning red under the tattersall collar he’s wearing.

“He’s so cute when he’s all bashful like that,” one of the women reporters sitting directly below Karl says to her seatmate. “I just want to take him home and eat him all up.”

Karl suppresses the urge to bare his teeth at her and growl. It would hardly be prudent. The last thing Chris needs is some reporterly cougar.

The rest of the morning is hardly much better. Chris gets praised, he turns the compliments to the rest of the cast. When someone says there’s no question that _he’s_ the Kirk everyone will remember decades from now, Chris can’t help the way his ears turn a bit red and he looks to the side before answering. It’s one he’s given before—a stock answer, really, and it makes Karl see red. He does the bit about Shatner’s shoes being big ones to fill and just doing his best and then repeats how J.J. almost didn’t cast him (something that has J.J. actually green at the gills and completely embarrassed that he’d ever said such a douche thing aloud, given all the lauds Chris has gotten) and that the rest of the cast is so brilliant that “whomever J.J. would have picked for the role would have been great, so thank you, but no, and please remember, _Trek_ is an ensemble cast— it’s the group that makes all the difference.”

This makes the cougars sitting down beneath Karl lean in to each other and literally “rawr.” He doesn’t bother to hold back his glare this time, and they cringe in their seats.

J.J. butts in, says, “Yeah, well, I was clearly smoking crack during that first screen test, Chris, since I should’ve cast you right then, so let’s move on to the next question,” and takes a big swig of his Diet Coke as he looks out at the audience. Fine. Someone asks Zach about his pet charity fundraiser he’s got on tonight, which has the man doing dangerous flaily things with his hands and everyone else pitching in about how they’re going to be there, so everyone had better be bringing their checkbooks for the poor homeless pooches, “Especially poor Admiral Archer’s dog, still haven’t recovered the blighter,” Simon pitches in, and that makes everyone laugh and then it’s a wrap, time for lunch. Thank fucking God.

\---

At the break, he catches Chris texting.

“How’s the kid?”

“Better. Thanks,” he says, not looking up. “They gave him some antibiotics via IV, I got him home around seven, Katie’s got him all settled, I’m just checking what she needs me to get when this thing is over.”

“You’re a good brother,” he says, rubbing the back of Chris’ neck, and the man literally startles out from under Karl’s hand, backing off as he starts shaking his head.

“Just doing what anyone else would do, man,” he says, the words completely sincere even as he won’t look Karl in the eye. Interesting—what’s with the jumpiness?

He clasps Chris’ shoulder again, kneading gently, and the guy’s wound tight as a cable. “Geez. You get any sleep at all, Pine?”

Chris doesn’t startle this time, but he does duck out from under Karl’s touch as his phone buzzes in answer. “Got to take this, man. Sorry.” Now he won’t even take a complementary neck rub?

\--

The afternoon doesn’t get any better, and Karl will admit it, there’s a streak of the sadist in him. He takes every chance he can to throw a compliment Chris’ way until it’s so clear that Chris is uncomfortable that even the reporters are changing the subject. He just can’t understand what it is that drives Chris’ reaction, and now he’s obsessed with getting into his head.

J.J. sends him a note.

“I don’t know what your problem is, but leave Chris alone.” The three exclamation points and the frowny face only add emphasis.

He keeps his mouth shut the rest of the panel, and no one asks him a question, focused now on Zoe and Simon, all to the good since they often get shafted. When it’s done, Chris slips out the door before Karl can even call out his name, and Zach grabs him by the back of the neck and drags him into the corner. “What are you doing?”

“What is _he_ doing?” Karl asks. “He’s the fucking _star_ of the movie, Spock and Kirk epic bromance aside, it’s not false humility, I know that and you know it too. Don’t you think it’s more than a little bit pathologically wrong?”

Zach frowns, groomed eyebrows beetling, and Karl presses his advantage. “It’s just gotten worse with all the public attention, it’s like—shit—I don’t know—but it is. Just—watch him at the party tonight, whenever somebody says something nice, he’s like to freak out.”

Zach’s frown turns thoughtful—but he nods and walks off with a “see you tonight.”

\--

He keeps his distance that night, watches Chris from afar. He’s adorable with the little kids, the ones who are petting the animals brought in by the no-kill-shelter Zach’s working with, joking around with them and making up names for the cats and dogs who don’t have any yet. He’s fine with their parents and the older folks, too, the genuine animal lovers, animated and sweet as he talks up the merits of some pooch or another and tries to get people to open their wallets. It’s the star-fuckers he gets awkward with, ducking his head and looking away, mumbling thanks and escaping from conversations as soon as humanly possible, at least when other cast members aren’t around to keep him pinned to the conversation at hand. There’s a couple of real writers and producers around, and those he manages to make nice with, at least so far as Karl can see, but it’s clear that Chris is worn out and something that’s not a fatherly instinct in Karl wants to go over and tell the kid to eat something, drink something, go home, get some rest.

An older woman, steel-haired, pinch-faced, no one Karl’d want to meet in a dark alley, corners Chris all of a sudden, taking his elbow and pulling him off to a corner with a hatchet-faced smile on too little skin. The woman clearly knows the inside of a plastic surgery suite very well.

“Who’s that?” he asks Zach, sidling over.

“Oh—Chris’ agent,” he says, sipping a soda.

Watching their body language, and the way Chris seems to be expecting some kind of harangue, Karl’s hard pressed not to get all Reaper and go snap her neck.

“Really?” is what he limits himself to.

“Mmm—some friend of his mom’s, been with her forever. I keep telling him he should change, but he won’t hear a word. And of course, now he’s her biggest client, no way she’s getting her claws out of him.”

Karl sets down his glass and heads over. “Hey, buddy, haven’t seen you all night. I was going to go hit the chow, want to join me?” He claps Chris on the shoulder just to see what he’ll do, but he doesn’t quite flinch. Instead, he gives Karl a tight smile and makes introductions. The agent is all too-pleased to meet him. Her parting shot to them is “Christopher, stick to the salad, you don’t want to get puffy and fat like Jeremy Piven.”

What the fuck?

Chris picks the antipasto salad rather than chicken caesar, sure, but he skips all the pasta and only eats all the meats and the veggies, and all of the lettuce. And drinks water. The fuck? Thank god they’ll all be out of town on a junket starting tomorrow. Maybe Karl can have a real talk with Chris. This town does crazy shit to your head.

\--

“Hey,” Karl answers, rolling and answering the phone.

It’s Zach, and it’s way too early for him to be calling.

“Oh, man, I’m sorry, but look, Noah’s dogsitter’s leaving town early so I’ve got to get him and Harold over there early and I don’t have time to pack them and me and pick up Chris and get us all to the airport, can you do me a really big favor and go pick him up at his lunch?”

Suddenly, Karl’s wide awake.

“Yeah. Sure. When. Where?”

“The Ivy. Twelve thirty. He’s having an early lunch with his agent. He was going to take a cab, leave his bag with the coat check so we could just jet right from there, I left him a voice mail but I haven’t talked to him yet.”

Karl looks at the bags he’d packed when he got home last night, then thinks over the outfit he’d left out for this morning. Fuck. He’s not a teenager, what he’d decided to wear already was fine. Although maybe he’ll shave. Put on a little cologne.

“I’ve got it covered. Go. Organize your menagerie.”

“Thanks, man,” Zach says, but Karl’s already hung up.

Maybe he wants a new shirt after all.

Twelve-thirty, hunh?

\--

“Hi there,” he says, letting the waiter pull out a chair. “Sorry I’m early, I misjudged the traffic, and I’d thought Zach said twelve, I’m really sorry, I hope it’s okay,” Karl falsely apologizes, sitting right between Chris’ agent and Chris as he looks at the stack of scripts on the table and the open notebook and pen beside Chris. Truly is a working lunch, then, though it doesn’t look like Chris has really touched his Cobb salad.

“I was just telling Chris he should aggrandize on the action star and take a few more,” his agent jumps right in, as if Karl’s been part of the whole conversation. “None of this independent movie stuff anymore, even if that little play seemed to do well. It doesn’t pay, doesn’t bring notice, there’s no need to do it.”

She sniffs and eats half a breadstick, then eyes Chris’ grey cardigan sweater, one of the ten billion Chris seems to own. “And I know you’re traveling later, but Ralph Lauren will send you all sorts of nice comfortable things if you just call them up. There’s no need to go dragging around in your grandfather’s sweaters and the same blue and grey all the time.” She turns to Karl with a smile for his black leather jacket and the pressed collared shirt he changed into at the last minute. “Who sends you your clothes, Mr. Urban?”

Is this woman for real?

“I buy all my clothes myself, I’m afraid.”

“Well, maybe you should take Christopher shopping, he looks so dowdy all of the time, he could be such a handsome boy if he tried.”

Is it wrong to punch someone he’s known twenty minutes?

The rest of the lunch goes pretty much like that, with Chris talking about indie scripts Karl would die to be sent and his agent pushing action ones Karl’s gotten and even he would turn down and in between, the woman’s got nothing but criticism for every other word out of Chris’ mouth. “Don’t use such big words, producers hate it when you’re smarter than them,” or “use words smaller than those the writers have chosen, you’re paid to say it, not write it,” and Karl wonders if she has any idea of the short stories that Chris sometimes writes, the ones that he once let Karl read, the ones that were stunning and boggled Karl’s brain until he actually said so, at which point Chris clammed up and said—“Well, I just write them for me, I wouldn’t ever try to submit them somewhere.”

At last, Karl can stand it no longer. At twelve-fifteen, with Chris’ shoulders tight and very seriously straight, because Chris is mindful of posture and body language when he’s in public, Karl stands and drains his Diet Coke after a look at his iPhone.

“Look, don’t mean to be rude, but we’ve got to go. Traffic’s said to be beastly and if we’re not going to miss our flight we’ve got to be hitting the road.” He grabs up the stack of indie film scripts that Chris liked and shoves them in his own messenger bag that he’d brought in, then shoves in the action ones, too, though it makes the bag bulge. Doesn’t matter. He’ll toss them in the back of the car as soon as they’re gone from the place.

Chris stuffs his own things in various pockets, makes some promise to call Karl doesn’t catch, then looks puzzled as Karl waits for Chris to precede him out and down the dim hall to the coat check where Chris stowed his bag. As soon as they’re out of sight, Karl shoves him into a nook—an old telephone booth, dim, no more phone, just a stool—and pushes Chris right into the wall, kissing him fiercely.

“She’s an evil cunt of a woman and you’re going to fire her as soon as we land in Berlin,” Karl mutters rough in Chris’ ear, so mad that his blood’s ready to boil from his ears. He ruts against Chris like a teenager, starving for contact, even as he can’t stop the damned growling, commands in between sucking nips at the sweet-salty flesh of Chris’ lips. “You can take whatever damned movie you want, or no movies at all, do a play, write a story, wear grandpa sweaters or nothing at all, but you’re not going to listen one more day to that poisonous bitch and you are going to learn to believe it when people who mean it say nice things to you.”

And then, because they really do have to get to the airport, though it’s the hardest thing he’s maybe done in his life, he pulls back and tugs Chris’ shirt and sweater around so they look proper again.

“Besides,” he says, kissing a wide-eyed, gape-mouthed Chris on the nose before he pulls him out of that alcove so they can go claim his bag—“that light grey with the blue tattersall shirt compliments your coloring well.”

Chris flushes and starts to look down, and Karl tips his chin up to make him look at him straight. “The correct response is either ‘yes, it does,’ like an arrogant Hollywood bastard, or ‘thanks,’ take your pick.”

“Thanks,” Chris manages, and he’s totally red, but hey, it’s a start.

\--

Since Zach ends up almost missing the plane, he doesn’t question why Karl’s stolen his usual seat next to Chris, and he ends up sharing with Zoe, and then doing the same with the cab. It’s near midnight, local time, by the time they’re through customes, and all they’ve had is bad plane food (even first class) and he can tell Chris is still tired and frankly, Karl does not want to go out and let Chris evade the conversation they didn’t have in the car on the way to the airport, though Chris didn’t flinch when Karl put his hand on Chris’ knee in between shifting gears.

Conveniently, they’ve got rooms across the hall from each other, so Karl doesn’t even bother to try to check into his. When Chris sets down his duffel and garment bag to test out his keycard, Karl just hefts them up and shoves Chris through and in, dumping all of their things on one bed as he puts out the do-not-disturb sign and takes off his jacket.

Chris clears his throat—they’d traded magazines and reading material on the plane, the same conversation they would have normally made—but now he asks—“Are you going to tell me what that was about?”

He swallows—he’s nervous—and he’s got this look on his face like Karl doesn’t know what.

“I could ask you the same question,” Karl parries, and advances on Chris. “Why you can’t stand it whenever anyone says anything nice, why you bend over backward for everyone in the world, but it couldn’t ever be actually true when someone says you’re a smart, talented guy who deserves all the good things that are finally coming to him? What’s that about, hunh?”

By this time, he’s standing a hand’s distance from Chris, and all those eye crinkles, those very plush lips, those slightly acne-scarred cheeks are so very close. Chris looks down and away, his “I don’t know” directed more at the carpet, and Karl wants to blame it all on that agent but that’s just a symptom, not the cause of something like this.

You live in a town like L.A., even where you have parents like Gwynne and like Robert, sisters like Katie, people who are always excited to see you and tell you that often, and sometimes, it isn’t enough. Not enough roles, too many other handsome blond actors, lots of other smart people at wherever it was that Chris went to school, he needs to look that up and _remember_ —and he’s been single a while or dating girls who just haven’t been all that bright, not in Karl’s estimation. Some people are just a little more fragile than others.

“So—we’ll figure it out.” And before Chris can question the “we,” because he knows that he will, the ink on the divorce is still barely dry and Karl’s got his own baggage that has nothing to do with Christopher Pine, he kisses those lips he’s been _not_ staring at all afternoon, threads his hands through the soft, bristly dark blond that he’s been very good not to tug at and yank forward to hold him in place while he kisses Chris until they’re both tugging shirts out of trousers and shoving each other over onto the bed.

He’d like to say it’s the best sex of his life, but it’s not, because it’s been years since Karl’s had sex with a man and he expects it’s been a little while for Chris too. Karl, at least, came prepared, and there’s a brief shuffle for condoms and lube and Chris—a little too passively, they’ll have to work on that too— spreads his legs, taking the bottle as if he’s got to do it himself, so Karl _tsks_ and takes the lube back, taking his time and his pleasure in watching Chris open, literally. It is, however, some of the most heartfelt, because every time he says something like “fucking gorgeous” or “jesus, just _look_ at you,” Chris flushes and shudders, so it’s a lot more drawn-out with the foreplay and kissing and awkward trying to find out what works than it would otherwise be.

When he finally seats himself fully, and oh-fuck-but-that’s-good— he has to just stop, because it’s hot and it’s tight and it’s Chris and Chris is just _looking_ at him like he’s not really sure this is real—he has to stop even longer because Christ, it’s been a long time since Nat looked at him like that either and hunh—Chris is carding his hand through Karl’s hair, kissing the side of his temple, and then he can move, isn’t paralyzed by a memory he never had in the first place and ought to be fucking thrilled to be making.

Is fucking thrilled. Is moving again. Is saying things in Chris’ ear that are increasingly breathless and hoarse, because at a certain point, the body takes over, knows what the heart wants even more than the brain does, even as the tongue babbles on. He’s paying Chris compliments the kid is going to have to learn how to take-- ones that make him writhe and arch on Karl’s cock and dig his heels into the small of his back, his fingernails breaking the skin on Karl’s shoulders no matter how short-bitten they are, because every time he says Chris is “clever” or “smart” or “gorgeous” or as his brain starts to melt and he lapses into the “schatz” and other German endearments of his childhood and college abroad. It’s that final “my sweetheart” gasped as he can’t help but lose it and cum that thank god makes Chris follow, and thank heaven a pet name is all that it takes, because Karl would have felt like a tool if Chris hadn’t gotten off right away.

Chris’ legs fall away just as Karl needs to pull out and fall to the side, and he does the gross but necessary tying off and discarding with no ceremony thing with the condom. When he rolls back, looking at Chris, the man still looks a bit dazed.

“You want a shower or room service?” Karl asks.

Chris blinks, slowly. “Both?” As if he’s not sure he’s allowed.

“Sounds good to me,” Karl replies, then lunges forward for just one more kiss because damnit, that mouth.

“What do you want from room service?” he asks, too lazy to find the damned menu.

Chris scratches his ribs, and Karl, making not so much bold as possessive, rubs his hand over Chris’ smooth and well-sculpted belly. He’s clearly thinking too hard.

“I think you need a burger and fries,” he announces, “and I need some schnitzel and kraut, or maybe a pizza.” German hotel schnitzel is bad, but still so much better than what you can get in the states.

“Thanks,” Chris says, shyly.

Good answer-- they’ll get there. Bare-assed, Karl gets up and makes the call to room service, asking for the delivery to be made in a half-hour.

On the way past, into the bathroom, Chris swats him, just once, on the ass.

Even better. Chris will be a good complement.  



End file.
